There are two familiar refrains why head coaches leave their current jobs in most sports.
Number one: They are at a small time program and they are looking for a bigger program and a bigger challenge. (For example, Urban Meyer, Bowling Green to Utah to Florida) This makes sense, of course, because not only do you get more prestige and apply your coaching skills in a more difficult and perhaps more satifsfying way, you also get more pub and coin.
Number two: A coach will pine away to go back to his alma mater or team he/she played on. They do this I assume, to continue the tradition started by a former coach or players, and they wish to be included in that teams' lexicon of greatness. (Roy Williams going back to UNC, for your example here).
So it made a lot of sense to have Schiano going back to Miami to take over the Canes because it would in theory fulfill both of those commonly cited reasons for a coach to leave. But I offer that the grass is not greener in other pastures, rather, Rutgers is the best place for him to continue on as a coach. And in Rutgers, Schiano has a unique opportunity that not many coaches are afforded. Before I get to that, letr me toss out a couple of questions...
Who coached Penn State before Paterno, Florida State before Bobby Bowden, or who took over for Vince Lombardi, or Woody Hayes?
Answers: Charles A. "Rip" Engle at PSU, Darrel Mudra at FSU, Phil Bengston with the Packers, and Earle Bruce at OSU.
The point is, with the exception of Penn State which had a bit of success before Paterno got there, each of those legends made their respective organizations the legendary entities that they were. Rutgers has a nice little footnote of playing in the first college football game, birthplace of college football, and I admit I like the ring of that, but guess what, Delaware was the first state...exactly.
Schiano's legend is still being written. If he like Penn State so much, it is because Joe Pa is a walking legend, and not just with the X's and O'x of football. Great coaches, especially college coaches, are not simply able to win, they are able to win in an atmosphere of young men growing into adulthood. I am not naive to think that money and the business of it all isn't a factor, but go take a poll about the differences between the NFL and NCAA Div 1, and although there is tons of revenue being generated, the difference is the family atmosphere of college programs, alumni, boosters, fans, all connected by a love of an educational institution. And Schiano is doing his best to avoid the academic pitfalls that make his players athletes mainly and students by name alone.
Rutgers is his chance to make his legend from scratch and perhaps give us another cool slogan below the birthplace of college football on a t-shirt.
I am beyond happy that he is with Rutgers for the long haul.
Go RU
Random thought: When people cover Chicago's professional team, they should not put the teams nickname in front of a common word for making shots or you wind up with a sentence that begins like this:
"The Bulls hit..." unless it is going to be something like "The Bulls hit the fan and boy was it messy..."
Like I said, random thought.
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2 comments:
Lucky you. Congratulations! I wish ours could make that kind of statement, but it might be too late. Word has it he is going to sign tomorrow.
49.
Hello there;
I'd like to thank both Coach Schiano and Coach Rod for sticking to the Big Beast. I'd like to explain why...
I'm a Jersey guy. In fact, I was raised in Piscataway, no more than one mile away from the old Rutgers stadium. In the sixties, my dad would take my brother and I to the games every Saturday. RU played: Army, Navy, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette, and Colgate. I remember those days like it was yesterday. I collected every flag from each school and hung them in my room. The Scarlet Knights were a small time football concern in those days.
I grew up at Rutgers. It was my playground, cacoon, party mecca, and educational forum. Dad would tell me stories of how in the fifties, Professor Albert Einstein would be at the Princeton games walking around eating hot dogs and cheering on the Tigers. Princeton would only play Rutgers at home. They were a tough team to beat. The rivalry was fierce. Jersey was a two school state, no other place mattered.
The years went by. Today, I tell my sons how I used to sneak into the games by climbing over the ladies room roof, right at the front entrence of the stadium. What a rush it was for a 14 year old boy! My elementary school would have class trips to the stadium, which was tiny at that time. Seating may have been 20,000 or less. My gradpa even helped in the construction of the stands.
As kids we'd go into the stadium with my dog Spike. We'd play on the track or jump on the pole vault cushion, or climb up the scoreboard. The amazing thing about it was the grounds keepers never gave us a hard time. They let us play. As for my playmates, all of their folks were professors at the university or in some fashion employed by the school, my parents were no exception.
This is what Rutgers means to me. Yeah, heavy spiritual, soulful stuff. You get the picture? These are things that will never occur again and yet no one knows it ever happened.
Rutgers...the birthplace of football. Hell, we invented the sport! The world loves it and makes money off it, yet Rutgers, the founding father of the sport, couldn't win a game in the mid-eighties. That was when Rutgers entered a new era, leaving Princeton behind and picking up BC and VT. I call it the "Flutie years". It was a terrible time in our history. Everything was closely tied to the football team, including the scholastic reputation of the university itself. Ironical isn't it? Football defines academic quality. It sounds insane, but the world believed.
So what's the point, right? It starts with history, roots, loyalty, Jersey; that's what it's all about.
So, how does all this tie into the likes of Coach Rod (WVU) and Coach Schiano? It's Simple. Rutgers means more to me than any amount of money. It's in my blood, it defines me, it's who I am. I care very much about what happens to it. When a relatively no name coach comes along and accepts the responsibility of leading that team and is paid millions of dollars to do so, the standard that this person is bound to is high. The expectations are understood...RU will give you a shot, and if you succeed, you stay. I know that doesn't sound fair, but million dollar jobs come with strings attached. It's not about YOU, Mr. Coach, it's about the school and the fans. It's our heritage, it's Jersey. Don't blow this opportunity and don't mess with the fans, because there will be hell to pay. That's the deal.
I imagine, that's what the administration of Rutgers' and WVU had in mind when they chose those men to coach.
This is just one man's story. There are thousands who share a similar experience. What holds true at our schools applies to others as well.
Again, million dollar jobs come with strings attached; big, fat, heavy strings that mustn't be broken.
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